Oil feed to a carbon black reactor employs a plurality of oil injection tubes, radially positioned around the reactor shell and perpendicular relative to the reactor, and with nozzles projecting into the carbon black reactor. Positioning of the tubes heretofore has been by hand, requiring a considerable expenditure of time, effort, and skill.
Traces of undesirable components in the oil feed, such as grit and the like, tend to cause the nozzles to plug, particularly when the nozzles have relatively small orifices, generally only about 0.01 to 0.1 inch, such as about 0.046 inch, in diameter. When an individual nozzle plugs or partially plugs, the portion of the corresponding tube extending into the reactor can burn out very quickly due to the exceedingly high temperatures encountered in the normal mixing zone of injection. Tube burnouts occur far faster than a human being can react, even assuming that an operator is alerted to the plugging.